


Just a Bite

by Phoenix_of_Athena



Series: Historical Omens (all of my pre-canon GO fics in one place) [9]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cooking, Curious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Curious Crowley (Good Omens), Food, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Other, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Pre-Canon, Pre-Canon: Good Omens, Pre-Relationship, Referenced Hunting, Temptation, but the potential is there, everything is new, historical setting, not long after Eden, sharing food, they're not friends yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_of_Athena/pseuds/Phoenix_of_Athena
Summary: Crawly sunk his teeth into his small, roasted bird in an enormous bite.“Well?” said the angel. “How is it?”Earth is new, and so is cooking. Neither the angel nor the demon have eaten meat before.  Aziraphale is hesitant to try; Crawly works a temptation.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Historical Omens (all of my pre-canon GO fics in one place) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925713
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner





	Just a Bite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Z A Dusk (snakeandmoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon/gifts).



> For Z A Dusk, who is an absolutely lovely person, and a joy to talk to and to work with. I promised to write you something ages ago, and I'm sorry that this took me absolutely _forever_ to get done. I got caught up in a cycle of perfectionism and wrote and re-wrote so many different things. Eventually, I ended up running with an odd mix of the first idea you gave me, which had Crowley cooking for Aziraphale, one of your later ideas, which was first times. So! I hope that you like what I eventually ended up with! >_<''
> 
> I'd also like to give a huge thank you to [ HestiaDragonfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HestiaDragonfly) for their fantastic beta work!

It had been about a week since the Garden of Eden had been sealed, and Adam and Eve expelled out into the world with naught but each other and a flaming sword. Each day had been fresh and new and exciting to witness as the humans stumbled through learning how to survive. Without the sword, Crawly knew that they’d have done much worse.

The fire had been a relative _godsend_ to the humans too, he thought with a chuckle. In addition to its warmth, they’d begun experimenting with other uses.

Right now, Crawly was sitting on a hilltop overlooking a valley where Eve’s campfire sparkled in the night. It was dark and chilly, and the demon had lit a campfire of his own. With one hand, he was holding a wooden skewer out over the flames, turning it slowly as he had seen Adam do the night before.

“What are you doing?” said a voice, and Crawly jumped.

“Oh!” he said, looking up. “Angel. It’s you.”

The angel who he’d met in Eden raised an eyebrow.

“Who else would it be?” he asked. “There’s no one on Earth but us and the humans.”

“Right,” said Crawly.

“Anyway,” said the angel, peering down into the valley and then back at Crawly’s fire, “what _are_ you doing, Serpent?”

“It’s Crawly,” said Crawly, and the angel blinked.

“What?”

“My _name,_ Angel.”

“Oh,” said the angel. “Right, of course. Silly me.” He paused. “Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, either! Aziraphale. Er. Is my name.”

“Aziraphale,” said Crawly, “nice to formally meet you.” He cracked a grin. “Anyways, _I’m_ cooking. Saw the humans doing it earlier, and got curious. Figured, why not try it for myself? So that’s what I’m doing.”

Aziraphale looked scandalized.

“You’ve slain one of His creatures? To consume it’s _flesh?”_

“Well, yeah,” said the demon, shrugging expressively. He quite liked shrugging—he enjoyed gesticulating in all manners, actually. Having shoulders, and limbs with tactile fingers, was very nice. Much better than being a serpent, in any case, and now that he’d had a taste of it, he didn’t think he’d fancy going back. But _speaking_ of _taste…_.

“I think it’s done, too,” said Crawly, removing his skewer from the flame and drawing it to his face to give it a sniff. His tongue flicked out, and the demon hummed. It _did_ smell good, though not in the way of flowers, or sweet overripe fruit, or rain on rocks, or decaying leaves, which were really all that the demon had to go off of at this point.

The angel was looking at him with narrow eyes, and just to spite him, Crawly sunk his teeth into his small, roasted bird in an enormous bite. Immediately, he pulled it out of his mouth again, eyes watering. 

The angel leaned forward, concerned, as Crawly held his mouth open to fan desperately at his tongue.

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale asked. “Did it _hurt_ you?”

Crawly hissed, holding his tongue out into the cold night air.

“S’ too _hot,”_ he mumbled, frowning, and Aziraphale relaxed.

“Oh,” he said, “well _I_ could have told you _that._ You had it practically in the fire.”

Crawly pouted.

“Hurts,” he complained, and the angel sighed. Then Aziraphale cast a brief glance around as if to make sure that they were still alone (and of course they _were;_ what _sane_ angel or demon would _choose_ to be stuck here on Earth to look after humanity?). Then he made a fairly complicated gesture with his hands, and the stinging of Crawly’s tongue went away. 

“Oh,” he said in surprise, “thank you.”

Aziraphale blushed.

“Well,” he said, “it’s not like I could just do _nothing,_ if I had the power to help.”

Crawly raised a single, dark eyebrow in reply, and Aziraphale looked away. They both knew that any other angel would have been happy to let a demon suffer for its mistakes; it was just that _this_ one couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to doing nice things that he shouldn’t.

Crawly turned his attention to the skewer again, and this time he dug his fingers carefully into the meat. It was still hot; the juices steamed under the pads of his fingers. Working quickly and in bursts, he pulled a strip of meat away from the rest; then he blew on it and popped it into his mouth.

“Mmm!” he said, eyes widening, and Aziraphale turned, again, to watch him.

“Well?” said the angel. “How is it?” He sounded frightfully curious for someone who’d been so judgemental over Crawly’s experiment only moments ago.

Crawly finished chewing slowly, enjoying the warm, savory flavor on his tongue as well as making the angel wait.

“It’s _good,”_ he said. “Not like fruit. It isn’t _sweet,_ but it’s juicy. Warm.” he sucked a piece of meat from between his teeth. “I can see why Adam and Eve like it.”

Aziraphale was leaning forward, now, raking his eyes over the skewered bird. Crawly scooped another strip of meat away from hot bone and put it in his mouth. He hummed, and watched the angel’s brow furrow from the corner of his eye.

“Do you want some?” Crawly asked slowly, and Aziraphale winced.

“I...I shouldn’t.”

“Mmm, and _I_ shouldn’t be offering something of mine to an angel,” said Crawly. “Could get in a lot of trouble for doing something like that. But here I am. Say, if you don’t want to _taste_ it, you could always just give it a smell and get an idea of it. Both of our jobs mean we need to watch the humans and understand them; it could be useful.”

“True,” Aziraphale said slowly. He took a quick, quiet breath. “And there wouldn’t be any harm in _just smelling it,_ would there?” 

He shifted closer to the fire, next to Crawly, who handed him the wooden skewer. The angel raised it, and inhaled. His eyes went wide.

 _“Good,_ huh?” said Crawly. “Not what you expected?”

“No,” agreed the angel, “not at all. It’s interesting. It makes...it’s making my corporation’s mouth water.” He sounded intrigued. “It really doesn’t smell like fruit, or the root vegetables from the Garden, at all.”

“Right?” said Crawly. “Well, give it back. I want some more. It’s tasty.”

Aziraphale handed over the bird with obvious reluctance, and Crawly hid a smirk. He pulled another piece of meat off of the bone and ate it, licking the juice slowly from his fingers. The angel’s eyes followed the path of his tongue, and Crawly stifled a grin. The next piece, he ate with relish, humming lowly and chewing with deliberate slowness. When he licked his lips, Aziraphale unconsciously mirrored him. Meeting the angel’s eyes, he dug his fingers into the meat and pulled a strip away as if eating was an art form.

“Are you _sure,”_ he asked, “that you don’t want just a _bite?”_

Conflicting emotions chased each other across the angel’s face: worry, skepticism, reluctance, and then _want_. 

“Oh, oh blast it!” cried Aziraphale, and then reached for the skewer. “Let me try some! It’s not like anyone is _watching,_ and the bird _is_ already dead…”

“Yep,” said Crawly, “dead as a door-nail, and not eating it won’t bring it back.” He passed the skewer over, and watched the angel dig his fingers into the still-hot meat, prying a piece away and almost reverently sliding it between his lips.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. His eyes fluttered closed. _“Oh,_ this _is_ delicious. You’re right, Crawly, absolutely. I can see why Adam and Eve like this, too.”

“Yeah?” said Crawly, grinning as he warmed his hands over the fire, “why don’t you finish it, then. I can catch myself another to eat later.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were wide and pale, almost gray in the firelight when they locked onto his. His lips quirked up into a little smile.

“Thank you,” he said with a sigh, “I think I will.” 

Crawly watched the angel as he pulled another strip of meat free from the bone and chewed it, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he ate. 

It was odd, the companionable silence with an angel; it had been odd from the start, how comfortable they found themselves together: how little the obligatory resistances seemed to matter when they were together. It was odd… but Crawly liked it better than the alternative of being stuck on Earth with someone immovable. _This_ angel, Aziraphale... Crawly could get along with him.

As Crawly’s thoughts wandered, Aziraphale made short work of the small bird that the demon had caught earlier that evening. Once he’d gotten all that he could with his fingers, the angel cracked the bones apart to scrape the last bits off with his teeth. Finally, with nothing left, he tossed the bones into the fire to sizzle and crack, and sucked his fingers clean, licking scraps of meat from beneath his nails. 

“Makes you wonder what the humans will try next,” Crawly said after a while. “I hope everything they come up with is like this.”

At his side, the angel hummed, agreeing without words.


End file.
